


flaws.

by fouryearslaterdrabbles (CheshireCatLife)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-04 19:55:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17310848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheshireCatLife/pseuds/fouryearslaterdrabbles
Summary: Bucky stumbles into a man under an awning and from there, his life begins to change.





	flaws.

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is a little short story I began writing. it's inspired off nearly every single rom-com plot you've probably ever seen but I thought it was time I wrote something fluffy for these guys.

Gentle rain patters around Steve, aligned to the jagged corners of his flayed umbrella, protecting his tiny form from the deluge that’s blasting down on those unlucky citizens who had read the weather report. Good weather, they said. Sunny, they said. Steve’s lucky he never listens. Hurrying under the awning of a nearby shop, he pulls the umbrella down and shakes it out with a side. He’s lucky it’s protected him at all. If he really gets into it, he was also an idiot for bringing an umbrella; an umbrella certainly doesn’t stop the icy winds from barraging through his paper-like skin and travelling right down to his bones. He’s shaking uncontrollably but it’s eight o’clock and whilst the nightlife is waiting to set up, the shops have shut, leaving him in a predatory in between in which he’s at an impasse.

He could try and get home but that would require a taxi or pneumonia, one which he couldn’t afford and the other, well, he would really rather not die, no matter how much his body seems to want him to. His other options, although few, are not much better. He can sit under this awning, shivering like a homeless man, wishing for the mild heat (if, again, he’s really honest with himself, his apartment isn’t much better than sitting outside but at least the wind can’t get to him) of his shitty apartment _or_ he can trudge through the streets in hopes of finding a cafe to sit in. Problem is, if nothing’s nearby he suffers the whole ‘pneumonia’ consequence again and even if he does, by unlikely chance, find a cafe (for which he has failed to do for the last half an hour - it’s always when you need one) it still doesn’t really solve him being able to get home. The rain is letting up any time soon and he has to get home at some point; he’s pretty sure the cafe staff aren’t going to let him sleep there nor does he realistically want to.

Today, he concludes, is just going to be a bit shit.

Bundling further into his leather jacket (yes, he _knows_ it was a bad decision but it looks cool alongside his magnetic ear piercing and beanie), he tries to will away the shaking (if anyone can do it, it’s Steve) and angrily curses the world for its natural cycles. Water is a shitty thing to pour on people; inconvenient, cold, just _ugh_. Steve pulls his legs up to his chest and curls himself into a little ball and pities his life further when he hears a cough and feels the sudden - albeit faint - shadow of a person stand over him. “Hey, you alright?” The voice asks as Steve peers up from between his knees. And god _damn_. The man is tall, evidently so, even without Steve standing up and although the street lights are dull, the shadows on this mans face are… _ugh_ (Steve’s mind refuses to veer towards any other adjectives; they just don’t adequately describe the brilliance he’s seeing before him). And ignoring the just tall bit, this man is handsome, undeniably so. His hair is pulled back into a man bun (Steve’s always liked girls with long hair so he has no qualms about men with it too), his eyes shimmering bright in the dark, although Steve can distinguish no colour though he thinks they may be blue and his eyebrows are furrowed worriedly. Oh, yeah…that.

“Yeah, fine,” Steve sighs, “just throwing myself to throw a pity party,” he huffs with a laugh.

“Breakup?”

Steve barks a laugh. “I wish. No, just can’t get home. I don’t have the m- I mean, I can’t get a taxi and I don’t want to walk home in the cold.” Steve says no more just silently gesturing at his withering frame with distain like that explains the entire debacle. “It’s a long walk.”

“Where you heading?”

“Downtown. I can walk from anywhere there.”

“Me too,” the man says, smiling disarmingly (the man’s hardly smiling at all and there’s something forced about the whole thing but Steve’s gaping too much to be observant, he’s falling apart at this man’s feet). “I was gonna get a taxi anyway, you wanna hop in with me?”

“I can’t,” Steve replies stubbornly, he’d really rather not explain that he doesn’t have the money for it to this man but he’s being pushed that way.

“No, seriously, hope in. On me. I’d buy you a drink but everywhere seems to be shut.” Steve really wants to think this guy is creepy but he’s saying it so kindly and he’s _hot_ and Steve’s a sucker for it so it’s not surprising when he fumbles a “okay, thanks, um, sure, that’s great, thanks again-“. Once he’s stopped, he looks up at the man, face flushed red to see him chuckling gently under his breath (Steve only notices it because the man’s shadow is moving on and off his body, letting a little bit of light seep onto him each time).

“It’s not a problem. I’m James.”

“Steve.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Steve.”

With nothing more to say, the man helps Steve to his feet, purposefully holding out his right arm whilst his left hand remains tucked into his pocket. Steve immediately fiddles with his umbrella, no matter how embarrassing it will be when it gets jammed when he tries to get in the taxi (he just _knows_ it’s going to happen), and pushes it up, passing it to Bucky so he can hold it over both their heads rather than Steve poking him in the eye with the sharp protrusions of metal that he’s yet to bother trying to fix. Really, he should just replace the damn thing but it holds sentimental value now; he’s had it for years, despite its plain, boring and downright melancholy design.

Bucky hails a taxi, sticking his right arm out and waving like a lunatic (there’s no other choice in New York) until an angry-looking taxi driver pulls over and shouts at them to hurry up even if they barely take a few moments. Much to his disbelief, Steve makes it inside with no rebellion from his umbrella and he’s left sitting next to a man he’s never met in a sinister looking cab with the sudden unsettling fear that he may have just made the wrong decision.

“Hey, you alright?” Bucky asks when he sees Steve periodically glancing outside the window, wondering if it would be a good option to just jump out here and now.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Steve breathes disconcertingly. Suddenly, Bucky’s hand is on his leg. “You sure?” He asks. “You seem nervous.”

“Just don’t like confined spaces that much,” Steve confides (it’s a lie as to why he’s nervous but it’s true).

Bucky huffs a laugh. “I get it. I wasn’t so good with them for a while either.”

“Why?” Steve asks because he’s an idiot who can never keep his mouth shut.

Bucky’s face falls and with the care of a mother with her newborn baby, he releases his hand from his pocket. Immediately, Steve sees the problem. The hand (is it even a hand) is fake, evidently so. Silver in colour, although evidently plastic, the thing stands out even in the shadows of the night. “I asked for a cool design, they said they could make it look like metal so I agreed but if anything, it just draws more attention to it,” Bucky sighs. “But that’s not the point. After it was amputated, my head wasn’t doing all so good so…” Steve doesn’t know what to say; this man, _stranger_ , has just unloaded on him a secret that Steve knows he wouldn’t just hand away to strangers. He feels both honoured and distinctly more worried that this is some sort of plot to kill him. But Bucky just looks sad, not murderous, as he stares down at his hand with distinct distaste like it’s a piece of gum on his shoe and not his own hand.

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, huffing a laugh. “Shit’s about right.”

“I’m colour blind,” Steve blurts, looking into Bucky’s eyes like they might just shoot lasers and kill him on the spot (he’s already put the whole murder thing in his mind and it doesn’t seem to be going away any time soon); it’s not the worst of Steve’s problems but Steve is definitely not the type to tell anyone anything’s wrong with him so for now, it’s the best he can do.

“What?” Bucky just looks confused.

“I mean, you showed me your arm so I thought you should know something about me. So, I’m colour blind.” Bucky stares at him for a moment to like he’s deciding what he wants to do when his mouth twitches upwards and suddenly laughs are wracking his whole body, shaking him whole-heartedly like Steve’s just told him the best joke in the world. “Steve, you really are something, huh?”

“Eh, I wouldn't say I’m all that great,” Steve shrugs.

“No, you really are. That’s priceless,” Bucky laughs.

“Is that bad?” Steve asks, suddenly self-conscious. Bucky sobers minutely, still smiling, unbound like it hasn’t been months since he last heard himself laugh like that. “Not at all, Steve, not at all.” Silence falls but neither of them are too desperate to fill it. Flashes of light pass as Steve stares drearily out the window, watching the white lines dart under the car, faster and faster until they’re travelling at the speed of light and then they are just…gone. Smiling gently, he looks up at the stars and isn’t surprised to note that he can only see one but it’s beautiful all the same.

He sighs when the car stops, the grumpy (and silent) taxi driver looking back at him expectedly. “Well, it was nice meeting you,” Steve says to Bucky, upon seeing the familiar surroundings - he’s only a block or two from his apartment. He opens the door, one foot already at and getting pounded at by rain when Bucky shouts “hey, wait, can I have your number?”

“Oh, sure,” Steve says with a blush, waiting for Bucky to get out his phone before inputting the number. “I guess I’ll…talk to you later?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Bucky charms with a smile, shutting the door from the inside and letting the taxi driver speed (definitely over the limit) away. Steve lets out a giddy laugh before calming. Less than an hour ago he’d been worried about getting pneumonia and now he’s got a potential date. Score. Turning, towards his apartment, Steve bustles inside and it’s only once he’s inside, dripping on the carpet, that he realises he left his umbrella in the taxi.


End file.
